Michael C here to see if the Annie Award nominations shed any light on this year’s rare neck and neck Oscar race for Best Animated film.

Frankenweenie captured critics and Annie noms. But not audiences. Will Oscar take to the (un)dead dog?

Animated Feature

"Brave" – Pixar Animation Studios

"Frankenweenie" – Walt Disney Studio

"Hotel Transylvania" – Sony Pictures Animation

"ParaNorman" – Focus Features

"Rise of the Guardians" – DreamWorks Animation

"The Pirates! Band of Misfits" – Aardman Animations

"The Rabbi’s Cat "– GKIDS

"Wreck-It Ralph" – Walt Disney Animation Studios

Without a slam-dunk frontrunner draining the suspense out of the category for once it's worth sifting through the tea leaves looking for omens. Unfortunately the Annie's nominated everything so it doesn't clarify much. At least they had the good taste to leave out The Lorax, Madagascar 3 and Ice Age 25, which I believe takes place in the early 1970’s.

I think the winner is a tossup between Wreck-It Ralph and ParaNorman with the edge going to Ralph, which would make it the first Disney Animation winner since Mulan in ’98. For both Annie and Oscar count me on Team Frankenweenie. All four frontrunners have their flaws but Frankenweenie was a gorgeous tribute to classic horror and the last twenty minutes were, no fooling, some of the most fun I had at the theater this year.

This is why it’s so hard to take the Annies seriously. OK, so Brave wasn’t the usual Pixar masterpiece, but are we supposed to keep a straight face when it’s snubbed in favor of forgettable assembly line product like Hotel Transylvania? And say what you will about the Frankenweenie’s script – and it was pretty thin – but that film had more panache in any random shot than Transylvania had in its whole running time. I can’t speak with any authority about the foreign nominees but they look intriguing from their websites, and if the Oscar voters are bored by the mediocre big budget stuff they would make a fine fit for the fifth wild card slot.

Character Animation in a Feature Production

Dan Nguyen "Brave" – Pixar Animation Studios

David Pate "Rise of the Guardians" – DreamWorks Animation

Jaime Landes "Brave" – Pixar Animation Studios

Phillppe LeBrun "Rise of the Guardians" – DreamWorks Animation

Pierre Perifel "Rise of the Guardians" – DreamWorks Animation

Travis Hathaway "Brave" – Pixar Animation Studios

Travis Knight "ParaNorman" – Focus Features

Will Becher "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" – Aardman Animations

I wish they specified which character they were nominated for animating because whichever animator was the lead on Brave’s Queen Elinor after her transformation deserves the win here. That was some classic silent acting right there.

More ridiculousness. Brave’s Princess Merida was a character that actually got people talking about her memorable design and she is snubbed in favor of, what, Adam Sandler’s Dracula and the cookie cutter look of The Lorax’s characters? Give me a break.

Oh, thank god. If they had left out Brave and Frankenweenie in this category I’d have given up completely. Still, the Annies nominate everything under the sun and they still manage to leave out the brilliant detail of Wreck-It Ralph's Sugar Rush scenes. But Hotel Transylvania had a non-descript castle or something, so, you know, never mind.

What? No more love for Hotel Transylvania? I guess they don't recognize a good Frankenstein joke when they hear one. But seriously, take out Poppy Hill and these could be the five Oscar animation nominees. Don’t know who I’d support here since none of them had a standout screenplay. I’d give it to Wreck-It Ralph by a hair due to cleverness in a imagining its world even if the plot lapses into formula (I can hear Team ParaNorman screaming but I thought its plotting was muddled. For one thing, why was Agatha the story's villain when she was the victim? The film’s message was essentially for her to stop being a drama queen and get over being tortured and killed for no good reason. I say she has a right to be pissed off.)

I’m going to ignore Sandler and say that this is a solid lineup, even though I'd have liked to see Martin Landau's hilarious Frankenweenie performance included.. The correct answer for the win is, of course, Alan Tudyk’s wicked tribute to Ed Wynn as King Candy.

Animated Short Subject

"Brad and Gary" – Illumination Entertainment

"Bydlo" – National Film Board of Canada

"Eyes on the Stars" – StoryCorps

"Goodnight Mr. Foot" – Sony Pictures Animation

"Kali the Little Vampire" – National Film Board of Canada

Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" – Gracie Films in Association with 20th Century Fox TV

The beautifully realized Paperman has to be considered the favorite here, but where is Don Hertzfeldt's awe-inspiring It's Such a Beautiful Day? Paperman is sweet and lovely to look at, but Hertzfeldt's film is like Tree of Life boiled down to a 25 minute short that is at once hilarious and so beautiful you just want to cry.

Reader Comments (13)

It's only the fourth Ice Age movie. I know you're being snarky, but at least be smart about it (I didn't see the film and don't plan to, I just thought the snark was a little lazy). Anyway, my favorite nomination is probably Atticus Shaffer for Frankenweenie. He's always a highlight as Brick in The Middle, so I loved hearing his voice in Frankenweenie. I also thought it fit Tim Burton's vision of EGore perfectly. I still need to see Wreck-It-Ralph (I live in Mexico and they only released it in Spanish down here, I'm not sure I want to see it dubbed, but I really want to see it). I'm also surprised Brave was snubbed in so many categories where it seemed like a shoo-in. I do think the film has a lot of problems, but it's beautifully animated. I also had a few story problems with ParaNorman, but not really with the Aggie aspect of it. I thought her story drove home the point of the movie, the dangers of pushing the world away just because you feel the world keeps pushing you away. I love that ParaNorman is kind of like The Sixth Sense with the twist that rather than being afraid of the ghosts he sees, Norman is more afraid of the living people around him, the people who see him as weird.

From the nominated movies I've seen, would be (in decreasing order of preference):

Wreck-It RalphParaNormanFrankenweenieBraveThe Pirates

Frankenweenie probably would have been a spot higher if it had ended the opposite way. (Sorry, trying to avoid spoilers.) I thought the way it ended sort of cheapened the emotional effect of what had come right before it. It would have been so much more poignant if it had ended the other way.

I agree, it should have ended the other way. Actually, I think Burton wanted it to end that other way (he seemed to be going for that other way) but maybe he was forced to change the ending due to studio interference or maybe the MPAA wanted him to end it this way for its rating. The same thing happened to Monster House. Remember the ending to that? It was added so the film would earn a PG rating (without it, it would have been PG-13). Just a theory, we'd have to confirm it. I still love Frankenweenie though, and if it couldn't end the other way, I think the ending they did use was kind of sweet.

Michael C.: Hotel Transylvania got so many nominations mostly because it was directed by Genndy "Samurai Jack and Dexter's Lab" Tartakovsky. It's the Annies trying to congratulate him for directing a theatrical feature, even if this looks completely forgettable on an aesthetic level, unlike those masterworks.

Catherine O'Hara as "Weird Girl", Imelda Staunton as "Queen Victoria", and Alan Tudyk as "King Candy" were three exceptional voice acting works this year. So glad they all got nominated.

As for the "Brave" omission in best director, I suspect the organisation responded negatively to the way Brenda Chapman was deposed as the director and replaced. For what it's worth, the director of "Hotel Transylvania" is a highly respected animator.

Just watched Wreck-It Ralph and my choice for Best Animated Feature right now is between it and Frankenweenie. If they pick the better story, it's definitely Wreck-It Ralph (I don't know if I call it PIXAR-level like Kris Tapley calls it, but it's pretty close, some amazing characters, a lot of imagination and heart), but if they go for the more unique vision, it's Frankenweenie (what a beautiful film to look at). I'm loving that this is neck-and-neck and either of these two films would be a worthy winner (with ParaNorman and Brave as very worthy alternatives, I still have to see some foreign films).